The weekend didn’t turn out to be too bad, did it? We did had some cloudy weather Saturday and some rain late in the day, but Sunday was mostly sunny. It was a little cool and the weather folk told us that coolness will continue this week as a cold spell of weather arrives from Canada. In fact one of the weather people said the temperature may not even get out of the fifties in some places on Wednesday.
I didn’t get one thing accomplished I wanted to do. I didn’t get to mow the lawn. Although yesterday was sunny for the most part, those temperatures never rose enough for my lawn to rid itself of the previous overnight wetness. As I’ve said too many times, my lawn mower doesn’t like wet. I’m hoping that perhaps the job may be completed today. Or tomorrow when Gator Wife is home to help.
I’m not going to get into a political rant here on so-called health care reforms, but generally when I begin giving my unsubstantiated thoughts on a subject, that subject turns into a rant. I’ll try, but won’t promise, to be good here.
I haven’t watch NBC’s Meet the Press very often since Tim Russert passed away. But yesterday I got fascinated with the discussion of health care reform and watched. Naturally, the Democratic side said we need reform and we need it now or, as one of them put it, it won’t happen at all. The Republicans, on the other hand, agreed reform was needed but didn’t like too much in the President Obama plan.
I really got fascinated by an interchange between Dem. Chairman Howard Dean and former Rep. Representative Newt Gingrich. One of the Dems’ selling points for a public, or government provided insurance, option was the benefit it would provide small businesses. Dean said that under the plan small business owners with fewer than 25 employees would no longer have to provide health benefits to those employees. That, he indicated, would be a huge savings to those owners.
Gingrich asked just how that “free” insurance would come about and Dean responded with it wouldn’t be free. No one ever said it would be free, he seemed to say. Hmmm! I wonder who is going to pay. Well, the idea is to tax people who make more than $250K and certain insurance plans. You and I both know that in the long run, the only ones who will pay for that public option are you and me.
Can you think of anything that the government has made less costly or more efficient than whatever it tried to fix?
Do you realize that in spite of all his proclamations of “my plan” on fixing the health insurance industry, President Obama really doesn’t have anything concrete to offer? It is really difficult to debate or discuss something that doesn’t exist. Not only cannot the proponents of the president’s plan show anything specific about his plan, opponents cannot point out the faults. He has offered no specific legislation and there is no specific legislation yet.
I believe the only “plan” actually on the table so far is the House of Representatives Democrat proposal. I think we’re still awaiting the Senate Democrat plan and all I’ve heard from the Republicans is “we need to do it right.” I have given my opinion of some of the House plan in earlier discussions.
There is, of course, only one health reform plan that can honestly reduce the cost of that care, and that plan is the one I have. And it’s equally as concrete as all but one of the others being bantered about.
GiM
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